I have a personal checking account and business checking account with Chase. I live outside of the US so Chase charges 3% on all of my ATM withdrawals which gets annoying. Ally only charges 1% so I'm thinking of opening a personal checking account with them. My average balance is about $2k so the interest would be negligible.

Do any banks charge less than 1% on international ATM withdrawals?

Do any banks reimburse ATM fees outside of the US?

For anyone who's used it from any bank, how well does mobile check deposit work? I think it amounts to emailing them a photo of a check you want to deposit?

I suppose it's impossible to deposit cash into an Ally account?

I've read that Ally will close your account if you try to use it for business. Can anyone recommend a good business checking account or should I stick with Chase there?

I called Capital One 360 and apparently the info at nerdwallet.com is wrong. They do not reimburse ATM fees and (the guy thinks) they charge .2% (not 2%) which he says comes from Mastercard. Looks like Schwab for me.

I tried to open the Schwab account from Spain and they said since the IP address is from outside of the US, I have to come to one of their branches to verify the account. I told them to close the account and I'll try again with a US IP.

boglerocks wrote:I tried to open the Schwab account from Spain and they said since the IP address is from outside of the US, I have to come to one of their branches to verify the account. I told them to close the account and I'll try again with a US IP.

Exactly the kind of suspicious activity that red flags potential fraud and annoys customers to no end. So if it's simply a matter of trying with a different IP, criminals can do the same. So if they reject your application a second time, their security process works, but you would be pissed off. If they allow the account, their security is questionable. No win for anyone. My bank used to require my pin to log in and with EVERY deposit. If someone wants to deposit INTO my account, by all means, allow them more recently, they've reduced the times I have to enter a pin, but it's still required again for withdrawals, which I agree is prudent.

I use B of A and they charged me 1% on a international ATM withdrawal. However, they waived the ATM fee as I used a bank that is in their network (Deutchebank when I was in Germany). It might be worthwhile to call your bank and see if they have a similar arrangement with any of the banks in the country that you are in.

boglerocks wrote:I tried to open the Schwab account from Spain and they said since the IP address is from outside of the US, I have to come to one of their branches to verify the account. I told them to close the account and I'll try again with a US IP.

The fact that they have that level of security, plus I have an RSA token with them, is part of the reason I really like Schwab and think they are MILES ahead of Vanguard in security and checking.

Gleevec wrote:The fact that they have that level of security, plus I have an RSA token with them, is part of the reason I really like Schwab and think they are MILES ahead of Vanguard in security and checking.

My beef with Schwab is that (on my accounts, at least) they only allow passwords up to 8 characters, alphanumeric only (no special characters).

Schwab is great and their customer service is out of this world. I travel for work within the US and had the IP security issue as well when opening my account. I don't know about anyone else but I appreciate that level of security.

Gleevec wrote:The fact that they have that level of security, plus I have an RSA token with them, is part of the reason I really like Schwab and think they are MILES ahead of Vanguard in security and checking.

My beef with Schwab is that (on my accounts, at least) they only allow passwords up to 8 characters, alphanumeric only (no special characters).

Get a RSA token which effectively makes 6 additional numbers that are randomly generated. 8 alphanumeric + 6 RSA generated numbers on a token only you have = only 2 factor security option I am aware of from the Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab trio.

I would love for Vanguard and Fidelity to catch up to Schwab in this regard.